1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to backpacks and chairs, and in particular, to backpack and chair combinations.
2. Related Technology
The popularity of backpacking and peripheral sports is at an all-time high, and there is a tendency for participants to incorporate the comfort of a chair into their experience. Many chairs have been developed to fulfill this demand, most commonly in the form of separate, lightweight and packable designs. However, a separate chair must be carried within or upon a participant's backpack, which complicates the simplicity of pack stowage and the availability of the chair upon demand.
One approach to solving this problem has been through the combination of a backpack and chair into a single unit that can be converted between modes. However, the embodiments of this approach are generally deficient because the backpack is unbalanced on a user's back, the chair is of inadequate rigidity or abnormal dimension, or the conversion process is disruptive to the pack load or its accessibility, or requires excessive assembly in terms of time, effort or the need for tools and separate parts.
Patents in this field include the following, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference: 5,538,318; 5,536,064; 5,527,088; 5,499,760; 5,492,255; 5,409,291; 5,381,941; 5,303,975; 5,289,958; 4,720,029; 4,487,345; and Des. Pat. No. 338,779.
The deficiencies encountered by earlier approaches to the backpack-chair combination have been avoided or overcome by the present invention. The earlier approaches had these shortcomings because they either failed to recognize or were unable to discern the unique combination of elements and interrelationships of the present invention which is briefly outlined in the following Summary, more fully described in the following Detailed Description defined by the Claims that follow.